Bardinux, a project of the Office of Free Software at the Universidad de La Laguna, Canary Islands, Spain, is a Kubuntu-based distribution. It follows Kubuntu's long-term support release and is designed primarily for the students of the university.

An updated version of PUD GNU/Linux, an Ubuntu-based Linux mini distribution with support for both traditional and simplified Chinese, is out: "PUD v0.4.6.3 has been released. It comes with a new plugin system 'opt-get', Gmail-based file backup and restore tool 'gmail-save', an installer to embed PUD into hard drive, and both simplified and traditional Chinese are fully supported in this version." More details about the new features can be found in the release announcement. Download: PUD-0.4.6.3.iso (191MB, MD5).

xPUD is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution and live CD/USB image consisting mainly of a web browser and a media player, with a simple user interface on top. The goal of the developers is to create an operating system which is extremely lightweight and fast-booting, includes applications for daily use, and has an intuitive, easy-to-use desktop interface.

Chen Ping-Hsun has announced the availability of a development build of xPUD 0.9.5, a minimalist distribution with a custom user interface designed primarily for kiosks and netbooks: "xPUD 0.9.5 - this is a technical preview release which only suits developers. New features - Ubuntu 10.10 base and Linux kernel 2.6.35.7, along with an updated build system. Starting with this version we launch a new project called TableWare, a web-based window manager, which replaced the old XPCOM/MozPlugger implementation with following software components: new NPAPI plugin, new XCB-based window manager, Node.js and WebSocket support, new daemon with inotify and D-Bus support, new WebKit-based runtime. So the fun starts here! How cool will it be if you can write a window manager using CSS/HTML and JavaScript in 297 lines of code?" Read the full release announcement which includes a number of screenshots. Download: xpud-0.9.5.iso (65.0MB, MD5).

Chen Ping-Hsun has announced the release of xPUD 0.9.2, a minimal, kiosk-type distribution with Mozilla Firefox, based on Ubuntu: "We're pleased to announce the release of xPUD 0.9.2. xPUD is a minimal and fast booting browser operating system, based on Mozilla Firefox, with a web-based user interface on top. New features: new SysTray; improved backup and restore; new page curl effect; WebApp mode; Opt-Get application store; new File tab. Based on the latest Ubuntu 9.10 repository and Linux kernel 2.6.31, xPUD 0.9.2 now comes with Vietnamese support and a total 15 different languages, and now we have X.Org and PCManFM built into the core system. The porting to ARM and MIPS architectures has also been completed." Read the rest of the release announcement (with screenshots) for more information and known issues. Download: xpud-0.9.2.iso (64.0MB, MD5).

Chen Ping-Hsun released xPUD 0.9.1, a new development build of the kiosk-style Linux distribution with a simplified user interface, web browser and media player: "A new development version of xPUD has been released. It includes bug fixes, provides better performance and has a new system architecture. Some of the features are still work in progress, so please always refer to the forum and FTP server for updates. New features: updated Plate user interface; auto-hide for Firefox and MPlayer in full-screen mode, mouse wheel scrolling support for Xvesa, web-based file browsing tab (experimental), kiosk mode; Linux kernel 2.6.30.5 with Aufs patch; Firefox 3.5.3; added five more languages: Finnish, Italian, Polish, Russian and Swedish; hybrid ISO/IMG format; built-in Flash player 10 support...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details. Download: xpud-0.9.1.iso (56.0MB).

Chen Ping-Hsun has announced the release of xPUD 0.9, a minimalist desktop Linux distribution with a custom user interface: "We're proud to announce a new version of xPUD, a small and fast Linux distribution with an easy-to-use user interface. Version 0.9 is full of improvements and exciting new features: built-in support for netbooks, tested on ASUS Eee PC, Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind, Lenovo IdeaPad, Dell Mini; runs on virtual machine, including VirtualBox, VMware and QEMU; multilingual support - Chinese (both traditional and simplified), English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish translations; system tray that display time, network status, battery status and memory usage; WiFi and Ethernet network manager has been greatly improved...." Read the complete release announcement for further details and a handful of screenshots. Download: xpud-0.9.iso (51.2MB).

xPUD is a minimalist live CD which contains a simple user interface with a web browser and a media player, and which boots in under 10 seconds. Version 0.8.9 was released this weekend: "It has been a while since our last update and we are really excited about this new version of xPUD, a fundamentally improved release with lots of new features, including: Linux kernel 2.6.28 applied with fast boot patch from Moblin, full set of tools for network configuration, a totally rewritten build system mkxpud, and our experimental user interface plate which is now shipped as XUL application. Other new features: better hardware support; more powerful Plate user interface, a bunch of handy tools (ifconfig, iwconfig, wpa_supplicant for WiFi setting, wvdial for 3G connection, and ppp, dhclient for Ethernet)." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information and some screenshots. Download (MD5): xpud-0.8.9.iso (48.7MB).

xPUD is a specialist edition of PUD GNU/Linux, a minimalist Debian-based Linux live medium designed primarily for USB storage devices. A new development version of xPUD was released yesterday: "We're glad to release a development version of xPUD. In fact, this is a 'lite' edition compared to the 'standard' live USB structure, but it contains many interesting features and reaches a new milestone so we decided to make it 0.8. System: 31 MB, 7 seconds, including MPlayer, Firefox and Plate UI, the whole system is packed into a single image without APT/dpkg; XEmbed and screen resolution - Xvesa now support 1024x600 pixel screen resolution, it looks good on EeePC; USB 2.0 and file system - because we eliminated most of the kernel modules, the USB support and some common file systems, including FAT/VFAT, ext2/ext3 and NTFS are built-in." Read the full release announcement for further details. Download: xpud-0.8.iso (31.2MB), xpud-0.8.zip (30.5MB).

Following version 0.6 just four days ago, a new version of xPUD was released today, boasting "same features, 20% smaller": "xPUD is a small and fast booting LiveUSB, usually boots into X within 15-seconds, and starts an easy-to-use UI as soon as possible. Being a Ubuntu derivative with APT/dpkg system, the rootfs is quite small: only 67MB of core image, including Ubuntu 8.04 compatible kernel, Xvesa as xserver, web browser (firefox), media player (mplayer) and input method (scim). This project is under heavy development, and we're looking forward to any kind of feedback, please visit http://xpud.org/ for more information." Read the release notes. Download: xpud-0.7.zip (76.3MB, MD5).

Pin-Shiun Chen just announced a special version of PUD GNU/Linux, an Ubuntu-based mini distribution based on the newest LXDE 0.3: "This edition of live CD is made for the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE), including the newest LXDE 0.3, installer and Ubuntu 8.04 packages. LXDE tries hard to get maximal usability from minimal resource usage, and provide a usable desktop for low end machines. Main Features: LXDE desktop - This live CD is based on PUD, except the full-featured live CD, it also included the newest LXDE 0.3 and pre-configured to provide an easy to use, lightweight and fast desktop. Multi-Language Support - English, both Simplified and Traditional Chinese are fully supported by LXDE live CD." Read the complete release note for more information. Download: pud-0.4.8.6-lxde.iso (259MB, MD5).

A new testing version of PUD GNU/Linux, an Ubuntu-based mini distribution with Xfce, has been released: "This is a development version of PUD, but it contains many experimental and new features, including a new installer, new package selection system, enhanced live CD build kit, kernel patches, boot-time speed-up optimisations, and better laptop and mobile device support. This system is based on Ubuntu 8.04 so it may contain bugs. New features: PUD comes with an installer now, as a result, OpenOffice.org and printer support are built in; we patched the kernel with Squashfs LZMA compression and Aufs file system as usual, and also added a patch called OpenLog to help trace the boot process; we introduced two boot-time optimisation methods here - sorted layout and boot gear; PUD will now auto-detect whether you're using a mobile device." Read the complete release announcement for more information. Download: pud-0.4.8.5.iso (257MB, MD5).